1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a wire harness which is wired in an automobile for electrical connection, and particularly to a wire harness which includes one or a plurality of electrical pathways and an exterior member which accommodates most or a part of the electrical pathways.
2. Related Art
For example, a wire harness which electrically connects high voltage apparatuses that are loaded in a hybrid automobile or an electric automobile is disclosed in JP-A-2004-224156 as an example of high voltage wire harness. The wire harness includes three flexible high voltage electric wires (electrical pathways) and three exterior members that accommodate and protect the three high voltage electric wires respectively.
The exterior member is a metal pipe of a circular cross section, and when connectors or the like are attached to terminals of the high voltage electric wires after the high voltage electric wires are inserted through the exterior members, the production of the wire harness completes. In the production of the wire harness, the exterior members are bended to match the shape of an object where the wire harness is wired.
In the above traditional technique, because the wire harness is constituted by using the flexible high voltage electric wires (electrical pathways), to wire better in operativity the wire harness to match the shape of the object where the wire harness is wired (shape of the wiring course), it is necessary to wire after having maintained a shape with a metal pipe. That is, in the traditional technique, the metal pipe is a component necessary for operativity improvement.
The inventor of the present application has considered whether it is possible to maintain the shape to match the shape of the wiring object without using the metal pipe. As a result, it was considered to adopt new electrical pathways which have a shape-maintaining function, instead of the traditional high voltage electric wires. Specifically, it was considered to adopt rigid electrical pathways to have the shape-maintaining function.
However, if the electrical pathways which have rigidity as considered above are adopted, it was found that there were the following problems. First, because flexibility is lost similarly as when the metal pipe is used, therefore a packing operation must be performed while the wire harness is in a big state. Second, because the packing is performed in the big state, an enough transporting space must be ensured. Third, it is difficult to absorb the dimensional error at the time of wiring due to the rigidity, which has an influence on the operativity or the like. Fourth, it is difficult to cope if the resonance frequency of the wire harness is included in the frequency range of vehicle vibration, which, as a result, also has an influence on the operativity or the like similarly to the above.
The present invention is made in view of the above situations, and the object of the present invention is to provide a wire harness which makes it possible to improve the operativity or the like.